Subscribe (via RSS) to this post's comment thread. (What does this mean? Here's a quick introduction.)

June 22, 2011

Breaking news from Dixville NotchPosted by Teresa at 11:00 PM *

We have a video taken this afternoon in the North Country showing some of that “fast and efficient EMS” action we periodically hear about. The reporter is Charlie Jordan, whom I’ve met. As he reported it in the online version of the Colebrook Chronicle:

On Wednesday morning, around 11:30 a.m., Jennifer Tate, 30, of Nashua, was seriously injured at the Cascade Brook Trail in Dixville Notch after she fell some 30-60 feet down a ravine. The ground reportedly had collapsed under her while she was taking a picture from on top of the gorge. By mid-afternoon, she was rescued through the coordinated efforts of many rescue and emergency personnel who had responded to the remote scene. Due to the incline where she fell, the rescue was very technical, but crews were able to get Tate up the side of the cliff and onto a stokes litter before bringing her down the trail to the 45th Parallel EMS ambulance.Tate was driven a short distance down Route 26 to a waiting DHART helicopter and flown directly to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon. Sgt. Wayne Saunders of the N.H. Fish and Game explained that the technicial rescue was a vertical raise up the side of the gorge. Conservation Officer Geoffrey Younglove, with the Fish and Game Search and Rescue, said that Tate received multiple injuries in her fall.

Two hikers who were also on the trail assisted Tate after her fall. Dan Webster said that he was able to hike down into the gorge to stay with Tate while his wife called for help.
Responding to the scene of the rescue were the 45th Parallel EMS, the Colebrook Fire and Rescue, the Beecher Falls Vol. Fire Dept. special ops crew, a professional ropes crew from Camp E-Toh-Anee, the N.H. Fish and Game and Search and Rescue units, and DHART.

Jim Macdonald was Scene Command at the top of the cliff, and Trail Command on the carryout. You can see him starting around 0:44, at the far right of the screen. He’s the worried-looking older guy in the red turtleneck. Starting around 1:28 he’s visible again from the back. He’s the rearmost guy on the right helping to carry the patient to the nearest road.

Jim’s commentary in chat:

The folks rigging the ropes were the High Angle Rescue Team from Beecher Falls and the rappelling instructor from Camp E-Toh-Anee.
Louie and Arthur were the team at the bottom of the cliff. They’d walked up the gorge, which included climbing a waterfall to get there.
At 1:22 you can get a view of the falls that Louie and Arthur climbed to get to her.
Here: Photo on left. http://www.colebrookchronicle.com/
On the foot of the stretcher we have Louie (on the left) and Jason on the right. Behind Jason is Morgan. Behind Louie is one of the Colebrook firefighters.
The two guys behind that are two more Colebrook firefighters. In the maroon shirt is the guy whose job was Patient’s Buddy. Then in the helmet is Brian, who was one of the people who rappelled in to pick her up.
A young lady having a very bad day, but not as bad as it could have been.
The orange blanket the young lady is wrapped in is a thermal blanket from my kit.
So now you know who everyone is.
I do appear in some of the video footage. I’m wearing a red turtleneck.
TNH: Around 0:44, at the far right of the screen, looking worried.
Jim: Yep, that would be me.
At that point, though, the medical care had been turned over to the DHART crew, a paramedic and a flight nurse.
It was quite steep. When you see the helicopter taking off, the hills in the background … she was way up on one of those.
Wayne Saunders, the Fish and Game officer, is a friend of mine. We’ve been on a lot of calls together.
He was the one who was shot in the chest by Drega, where his badge saved his life. His badge was driven into his chest and stuck there. Had to cut around it to get his shirt off.
The entire operation took a while. It was pretty rugged terrain.
The civilian held c-spine on her until Louie and Arthur arrived. The fall was well over 30 feet.
Louie is the fellow who shot the bear in your freezer.
… Lookit this, we made the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/nh-woman-falls-60-feet-to-bottom-of-waterfall-while-taking-photo/2011/06/22/AG7QkRgH_story.html
NHPR: http://www.nhpr.org/nashua-woman-rescued-after-60-foot-fall-north-country
Union Leader: http://www.unionleader.com/article/20110622/NEWS07/110629958
TNH: Hah! The AP version has to be lifted from Charlie Jordan’s, but they have a note at the bottom saying they own the story.
Jim: And that it can’t be re-written, etc.
They weren’t there. Charlie was.

I had a quiet afternoon, myself. But if I ever fall down a ravine and have to be hauled out on a Stryker frame by a technical ropes crew, I’ll hope Jim is there.

I made an attempt to participate in one of these a month or so back when our youngest yanked me off the path up from Union Dam on the Patapsco. Fortunately I was able to keep from rolling all the way down the hill, and the snapping sound turned out not to be my glasses. BUt I now have a nice scar by my left eye.

He'd tracked it for months; through verdant forest, over jagged cliffs, across the asphalt jungle. In the final moments, the bear sign all along Flatbush (forgive me, I can't remember where exactly you guys live) lead him to a cold, metallic cave where the ursid was snacking on Gorton's Fillets and making a terrible mess.

Here in the UK, most rescue services are full-time professionals. Some Doctors do extra training to provide back-up at road accidents and the like.

The two big volunteer groups are the RNLI, who do have a few full-time lifeboat crews, and Mountain Rescue teams. The Mountain Rescue teams in some places do have RAF involvement. It.s the Mountain Rescue teams who would be most familiar with that sort of operation

In at least one place, when the RNLI decided there was no longer any need for a lifeboat to be based there, went and bought their own.

And sometimes these rescues have involved a bright yellow helicopter flown by a Prince. Put that in a book and they'd never believe you.

Regarding AP 'lifting' stories: The AP is a non-profit co-op and part of the agreement is that subscribers allow AP to copy and rewrite. The rewrite is copyright protected, just as is the original story. In recent years, AP has often, but not always, credited the original reporter(s) in its long-form rewrites. You seldom see credits of any sort on short pieces.

Not to get all sidetracked, here, but... The 'inexplicable' is explained easily by the desire of AP and its members to keep the copy in the family. There were far too many cut-and-paste things going on the internet, leaving member papers w/o eyeballs. AP has never allowed non-members to copy or rewrite. As for the 'rights grab,' Indefensible, but understandable for a panicked organization..

Very impressive job all around, and lucky for Ms. Tate that we have people like that willing and ready to do things like that.

It struck me as odd, though, that an EMS responder would give out, and a news outlet would subsequently publish, the victim's date of birth. Is that common practice, or just a slip-up by someone more used to reporting to the receiving hospital than to the media?

Jim: sorry, I'd missed that. That makes him a form of law enforcement, right? I'd still expect more awareness of privacy concerns from a law enforcement officer. I'm not outraged, or anything, just mildly surprised.

I have eaten bear. There was a time when I was married to a man whose father was a hunter of pretty much everything, and had the meat cut and wrapped for distribution to family members.

I don't even remember what it tasted like. All I remember is how it stuck to the roof of my mouth. And stuck. And stuck. I recalled that our pioneer forefathers used bear grease as axle grease, and I understood why.

Jo Walton @8. It does depend on what the bear's been eating. I've had bear once, at a game feed. It was clearly both omnivorous and male, as it had boar taint worse than the wild boar I'd eaten at another game feed. Because of that once, I'd rather not eat it again, unless it were a young bear. This one was a bear from Alaska, and fish had clearly been a prominent part of its diet at some time or other. Just as pork fed more than just grass sometimes has a strong sweet taste, so did the bear, but the fish, other stuff, and boar taint really made it not to my taste. "Gamy" can be anything from grass-fed elk to squirrel to raccoon. The bear was just out there. Perhaps a bear that did nuts and grubs and moths would be less so.

Good to hear that people like these are on the job. I wish they had been present a couple weeks back when I went for a doctor's appointment at the professional building next door to the local hospital. As I finished crossing the parking lot, I heard this *splat* up ahead, and saw that a woman had done a faceplant on the sidewalk next to the building. A couple ran up and the man asked if she was all right, and the woman ran off to get help. Well, she wasn't all right--couldn't talk clearly, couldn't get up, and then I saw that she was bleeding from her nose. The man called 911. Well, in the 10 minutes I was there, 911 didn't show up. And neither did a bunch of medics with stretchers, only a nurse with some towels, who said she couldn't find a wheelchair. I could not do anything but stand there and say that help was on the way, which I probably couldn't make very convincing. And we were right next door to the hospital.
The prof. bldg. was not well marked/numbered, and I don't think any of us patients had its full name memorized. After the nurse came with the towels I figured I was not needed, so went on my way.
I guess the situation was taken care of when I was done, I didn't check, but when I came back next week for another appointment, there was still a spot on the sidewalk.
I didn't have a cellphone, and I just might go and get one after that, but I wonder how many besides me have trouble naming all the buildings and streets we see every day, let alone occasionally, phone or no phone. I thought 911 could zero in on cell phones but I guess not all phones have that capability.
I guess if I am out and start feeling unwell I should just head for a ravine...

RE: Angiportus' story: We were on our way back to Berkeley from a friend's place in Sunnyvale, California, when the !Check Engine! light came on. That had never happened before, so I got alarmed, pulled off the Lawrence Expressway, and called AAA.

The operator asked what town we were in. We couldn't answer. We'd been crossing the city limits of San Jose, Sunnyvale, I think Mountain View, and probably into some parts of unincorporated Santa Clara County all day, and the expressway meanders through some parts of Idunno how many of those, and they're all pretty much indistinguishable, just Silicon Valley sprawl as far as I can tell.

Made for some confused conversation, of course further confounded by patchy cellphone signal and call-center background noise. The call center was most likely nowhere near Northern California.

(Fortunately, AAA took better care of us than whoever was supposed to be on the job in Angiportus' town, and the problem was probably just a not-tight-enough gas cap. The nice young man in the big yellow truck was able to find us by street and strip-mall restaurant names.)

Post 26 put me in mind of the terrible Hillsborough Football stadium disaster in the UK.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7992845.stmst.

It's not mentioned in my link and my google skills have failed me in finding a cite but significant delay was caused by the then practice of the emergency services. They had recently changed to a national call centre and are heard repeatedly asking for the address from someone who only knows they are at "Hillsbrough football ground" and has no idea of the street name, let alone the address (it was an important quarter final and neither of the teams playing were local). You will see in the news report that the police were unaware of what was happeneing at the time the first emegeency calls were being made.

But I am here, fortunate to be alive, home and walking and its all thanks to the many individuals that responded to the trail that day. I hope to send out formal letters once I am able to write, but please send my love and appreciation to all involved. Its hard to find the words to say thank you. The collaboration and efforts of the teams saved my life. There are no words to describe my gratitude--all I can say is thank you!

On the question of what bear tastes like -- New Hampshire bears, at least, taste really good. Of course, they're black bears, not grizzlies, and their diet is mostly in the roots-and-grubs range, which may make a difference, as may the skill of the hunter who kills the bear and of the butcher who takes it through the transition from a whole animal to a lot of meat in little paper packages.

The rule of thumb, as I understand it, is to treat bear meat as though it were pork, and pork of the old school (when the lard was as important a product as the meat) at that. Bear meat makes good sausage, and chili, and meatloaf.

Xopher@35:Pork of the old school, as in "back when US pork was a serious carrier of trichinosis." Pork isn't, anymore, but I understand bears still can carry it in the wild.

That, too. Bears, like pigs, are by nature omnivores, with all the problems that implies. (The lean, trichinosis-free pigs of the current day are mostly the product of industrial hog farming, which comes with its own set of problems.)

Jen! Good to see you back. It's been about eight weeks since your fall ... collar coming off soon? Brian was the person who stayed with you all the way up the cliff. He's a volunteer with Beecher Falls on their high-angle team, and a part-time EMT with the 45th. I'll tell him that you said hi.

If you're ever back up this way, drop by the station. We have coffee 24 hours a day.

And, I hope you find other things to delight you at Making Light. It's a friendly blog.